


This is Not Musketeer Business

by Neftzer_nettlestonenell



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Episode Plot, Episode Related, Gen, The Prodigal Father, minor episode re-write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-17 13:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4668689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neftzer_nettlestonenell/pseuds/Neftzer_nettlestonenell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate (side-plot) for S2 The Prodigal Father.<br/>Where Porthos and Milady have to strike up an unconventional, initially ambivalent partnership.<br/>(Began via gifset on tumblr)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

( _During the storyline of the search for Porthos’ father_ )

  
She looked around about the large figure of the man who had unexpectedly presented himself in front of her, where she sat eating her dinner. But no other figure in the respectable Inn seemed to have arrived with him.

“You come alone?” she asked, and though she did not speak the name of Athos it still hung between them like smoke from a smouldering fire.

“This is not Musketeer business,” Porthos told her.

She looked up at him, appraisingly, looking for his tell. “You seek me out for business of some kind?” Her eyebrow cocked with interest.  
  
“Last I heard, you were thrown out of the palace without a sou to your name.”  
  
She looked at him for a moment, as if choosing whether to respond, as if undecided whether his statement was meant as preamble to nasty remarks.

  


“This is hardly the Louvre,” she instead announced, wearing her typical ennui, her spoon turning over in the bowl of colorless stew before her, as if to help illustrate how far she had fallen.  
  
“No matter,” he shrugged, as if she had been apologizing for their surroundings. “I have eaten at–-and been turned away from–-far worse in my lifetime.”  
  
And so he was not there to belittle.  
  
In acknowledgement of this, she beckoned to a serving girl to bring a second cup.  
  
He did not move to drag up a second chair for himself, but continued to stand, hat in the crook of his arm as if he were being presented. “I will say that your efficiency in your line of work is, impressive.”  
  
She stared, waiting. Waiting for him to speak plainly and to his point, rather than make carefully-worded compliments.  
  
“How are you at finding people?” he asked.  
  
She gave him a measured look, remaining inscrutable. “Does the person wish to be found?”  
  
“Maybe.” He was good enough at his own version of inscrutable.  
  
“Who, then, do you wish to find?” She was curious, but practiced enough not to show it.  
  
“My father.”  
  
She paused a moment as if to think about this.  
  
“I never knew him,” he said.  


* * *

  
Her eyes traced a path from where he stood to an available, empty chair. It was an invitation which he finally accepted, reaching to pull the chair over to the table and seat himself in it.  
  
“…Which could be said for half of Paris on any given day,” she announced, “More so, even, among the Court of Miracles.”  
  
He did not nod in agreement, though he found nothing to naysay in her pronouncement. “Treville knows,” he told her. “Or at least, knows something.”

  


She sat down her cup. “Then why not ask him?”  
  
He gave a shake of his head. The Captain’s intransigence in this still troubled him enough to birth more than one sleepless night. “He won’t tell me.”  
  
She took a moment, seeming to consider this. “And what says Athos?”

And there it was, the name that connected them in any way they two might be connected. It is possible that both their spines straightened at the sound of her speaking it.  
  
“That if Treville is keeping it from me, he has a good reason.”  
  
Her eyes slowly, deliberately came up from where they had been studying the rim of her cup. “I’ll not disagree with that. The Cardinal himself found your Captain to be excellently discreet in many important matters. And at times valued his opinion in others.” She watched to see how he would react to this.  
  
“Yeah, well, to hell with discretion,” he told her, and she did not doubt his impatience in the matter. “I am no child, no orphaned whelp needing a nanny to make decisions for me. I want to know.”  
  
“Fair enough,” she agreed. “Do you know his name?”  
  
“I know nothing about him.”  
  
“Nothing?” her voice registered unexpected surprise, it was the first drop in her façade he had seen–-today or any day. But it was not a wholly revealing moment. She was a professional. It was more of a scoff of disbelief. “I am expected to find a man using no information?”  
  
He worked to assure her, to sway her into taking on this task. “I can pay you. I’ve received a legacy–-it’s generous enough to fund this–-from General de Foix. Do you know of him?”  
  
She recited the facts of de Foix’s dossier as though the deceased Cardinal had but shared them with her an hour ago. “Imprisoned in Spain, has a sister, Lucie, who was held with him.”  
  
“That’s right. I think he knew who my father is. I think that’s why he left me this money. I helped in his escape, but he remembered none of the others upon his death.”  
  
“Could _he_ be your father?” she asked. “Could Treville himself?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he confessed. Both ideas had occurred to him at one time or another. “I feel like I don’t know anything anymore.”  
  
“So, Treville, de Foix…what of your mother?”  
  
“She’s dead.”  
  
Now he saw impatience within her. She had not expected his mother to be living. “What was she called? She was a slave? Do you know her master’s name? The names of any of her close acquaintances?”  
  
“She raised me in the Court of Miracles,” he shook his head. “She never spoke of a past life. I’ve long since asked any friends she had there. They knew nothing of her story before she arrived with me.”  
  
“And you believe your father is a white man?”  


Porthos looked down at the back of his hand. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”  
  
“Well, as Paris is full of white men–-I can make no promises of success.”  
  
“I will pay whatever it takes.”  
  
“And if what I find exonerates Treville’s actions? You will pay for that, too. Though in another currency entirely.”  
  
“To me, anything’s better than not knowing.” No one could doubt that he meant it.  
  
She gave him a measuring glance, and it seemed to be that she agreed. “Pay for two week’s lodging for me here. And I will need pocket money. And access to a horse.”

* * *

_Later_ …  
  
He spoke first. “You sent word that you wanted to meet?”  
  
“You have more patience than I would credit to you. It has been weeks and you have not shown up demanding information.”  
  
“These things–-investigations–-take time. I saw no reason to get in your way.”  
  
At this she smiled.  “I like you better the more I get to know you, Musketeer.”  
  
But his interest in why she called for him to come gave him no time for a smile of his own in reply. “Do you have it?”  
  
“There is only one name that is known around the time of your birth linked with both de Foix and the Captain’s: the Marquis de Belgard.”  
  
He stayed silent. Rolling the name around in his head to see if it meant anything to him. “No. Nothing,” he confessed.  
  
“He is a recluse now, withdrawn to his country estate. He was implicated in Marie de Medici’s coup, and has since lived quietly, one would assume to avoid further disgrace.”  
  
“So I must travel to the country to meet with him…”  
  
“There is a house here in Paris which he owns. But those most often seen there do not bear the Belgard name. Perhaps the lady is his daughter…”  
  
“A sister?”  
  
She shrugged. “Porthos,” and here she leaned closer, using his name in a way unlike her usual self. “Captain Treville and this man were virtually inseparable. They were intimates. Brothers. And yet in your time with Treville you have never even so much as heard his name. Only something of great significance would have caused such a falling out between them.”  
  
He tried to shrug that idea off. “Sounds like Belgard came out on the wrong side of a coup.”  
  
Her lips pressed together, seeing that he was unwilling to entertain such thoughts. “Or he was the losing member of a love triangle.”  
  
“What? Treville?” he paused, trying to follow her logic, “and my mother?”  
  
His face showed he credited this notion not one bit. He felt that had he met his father he would know–-something in him would know. “I shall ask Belgard when I see him. “ And here he forgot himself, speaking to her as to one with whom he was planning this part of his life, rather than just as the investigator he’d employed. “Do you reckon I go to the country, then?”  
  
She did not offer an opinion, only added with uncharacteristic caution (and a touch of concern), “He does not come to the Paris house. And yet it is kept in fine style. It is an address that is not unknown among certain…levels of Paris. I would keep clear of it,” she said, as though planning her own meeting, “until I met the man and took my own measure of him.”  
  
“I go tomorrow, then.” At this he placed a fat purse on the table between the two of them, closer to her than him. She had not held out her hand to receive it, had not made any mention of that payment from his legacy that he had promised to her.

But here it was, now. _Done_. Her obligation to him fulfilled, and his to her. He was for the country outside of Paris, and she was for lodgings a step or two above these, and a new frock quick-as-she-could.  
  
Their parting was respectful, but hardly warm with camaraderie.  


* * *

  
It has been several days since Porthos and Aramis rode onto Belgard’s estate. Aramis has long since left Porthos to spend time alone with his newly-discovered father. One afternoon when Porthos walks toward the stable to take his mount for a ride on Belgard’s estate, a stableboy tells him he is wanted at the nearby inn.  
  
Confused, Porthos takes his horse off the estate and to the inn in question. He is surprised to encounter Milady in the stables there, even before he enters the inn. “Whoa! What’re you doing here?”  
  
“It is better, perhaps, if we are not seen together inside.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“The house in Paris, the one owned by Belgard?”  
  
“Yea, my half-sister and her husband, they stay there when they’re in the city.”  
  
She scoffed. “That is a genteel way to put it.”  
  
“Put what?”  
  
She tells him what she has found.  
  
He tried to understand what she was telling him. “But why would they do this?”  
  
“Perhaps they need the money,” she suggested. “Perhaps they merely have a taste for cruelty.”  
  
His face grew stormy. “And you have come all this way to accuse them? To accuse him? Why should I believe you? You, who care for no one but yourself? Do you expect I will pay you for such slander against them?”  
  
Her face grew hard. She had known it was possible he might respond in this way. He was a man trying to get past Treville having kept an important secret from him for years, a man trying to get his bearings finally having learned where he came from. The news she brought was of course not welcome. It was news easier to disbelieve than to credit.  
  
But she was smarter than to be easily baited by his first reaction to her discovery. “It is true,” she agreed to his accusation. “I care nothing but for myself. I was not yet twelve when my mother sold me to the man Sarazin to do with or use as he pleased,” she confessed to him. “She received three weeks’ food, enough to keep my younger brothers and sisters alive–-and enough wine to make her forget what she had done.” And here her face took on a fleeting expression of near-amused irony.  “I expect no payment of you. What I _expect_ is for you to be Porthos du Vallon, King’s Musketeer, raised in the Court of Miracles among girls and women with just such a story. What I expect is for that man to investigate whether Belgard is also involved in the selling of these girls.”  
  
He looked at her for a long space, and she could tell he was trying to decide if he could gauge the truthfulness of her assertion about her own past. Yet she offered him no verbal affirmation. It had cost her enough to bring those facts into the open, she did not wish to dwell upon them.  
  
He must have found his answer, though he did not say what it was. “See that,” he asked, pulling the small picture of a woman Belgard had given him out of his shirt.  
  
Milady said nothing, but looked at the image as bid, not taking it from his hand.  
  
“He gave it to me,” Porthos told her. “’To remember her by’. But this?” he jutted out his lip and shook his head. “This is not my mother. You don’t forget what your mother looks like.”

She did not agree aloud, but she knew the cutting truth of it too well. She merely inhaled deeply through her nose, her teeth at biting on the insides of her lips. _Her mother’s face_. But one of too many things she could never forget.  
  
He agreed to take a closer look at Belgard, though his agreement was guarded, and his countenance disagreeable at the very notion that the father he had just found might be involved in such dealings.  
  
She warned him; “You cannot ask him–-or your sister-–about the Paris house. If they suspect, they are likely to put a stop what they have planned.”  
  
He reacted better, seemed to regain his bearings, once they had moved from her accusation into a planning phase. “Agreed. I shall return to the estate, see what more I can find out there. You ride for Paris. Tell the others. Devise a plan to get inside that house.”  



	2. Chapter 2

**Later, in Treville’s rooms -** “You cannot be seriously asking him to do this–“ Aramis protested as Treville watched him, his posture outraged, angry for Athos’ sake.

Athos’ head hung not exactly down, but certainly not at its usual confident angle when the three men consulted on matters of plans and ploys. But then again, they did not usually do so with a woman present–-much less a woman such as Milady.

“She is right, Aramis,” Treville told him, having no problem accepting that fact. In his work with the Musketeers he had dealt with far worse characters than the Cardinal’s former assassain. “Your face is known. You cannot be seen trying to gain entrance to Belgard’s Paris house.”

“D’Artagnan, then,” Aramis suggested. Anything to save his friend from having to be in further proximity to this woman.

Treville scoffed. “I would sooner light a candle upon a mound of gunpowder,” he exclaimed. “There is a reason, you must realize, that I have not invited him to this,” he threw out a hand illustrating their present convo.

Milady looked on; Aramis would have said like a satisfied mother cat who has just made a meal of her newborn kittens, Treville would have said ‘impasssively’, her face a practiced mask. Athos would have said–-no one knew what Athos would have said.

“I will go with her,” was what he did say, “These girls–-“ he did not finish the thought.

Treville gave a nod, Aramis looked like he wanted to spit.  
  
And no one noticed the moment’s crease in the corners of Milady’s eyes.

* * *

  
**Later that same night  
**  
A lackey (unknown to all) accompanied Milady to the Garrison, carrying certain packages. She was dressed resplendently, even for her, attempting to dodge the horse manure and mud with which such frequently-trod ground swelled. A place was made for her in the room used in inclement weather as their canteen, largely because Treville-–despite agreeing to the arrangement–-wished to spare Athos from having to entertain his estranged wife’s presence in his close personal quarters.  
  
She was seated, awaiting Athos when he entered. He made no comment on her appearance. The lackey stood behind her, the packages now stacked on a table in front of her.  
  
Athos was dressed–-save his Musketeers’ identifying shoulder leather–-in his usual clothing.  
  
“You cannot wear that,” she said.  
  
“These are my clothes,“ he told her. "They are what I have.”  
  
She gave a small sigh, but not as though this surprised her. “I feared as much. I have brought you M. Claude,” and she indicated the man to her rear.  
  
“Monsieur?” Athos asked the man.  
  
“He will not be long–-“ she said.  
  
“Long in what?” Athos asked.  
  
“You cannot go dressed like a man living off a Musketeers’ wage,” she told him. “I have brought attire more suited for le Comte.” She did not flinch when she said it, but his eyes half-closed at her use of the title, and perhaps not with a little pain.  
  
“M. Claude is a quick-work tailor I am told. He will have you ready to leave in the hour.”  
  
Athos looked at her with far greater steadiness in his gaze than he had yet done. It was a look that would have made a less confident person squirm.  
  
“You are quite welcome,” she told him, with a smile that was not broad, but was far more genuine than those she usually shared.  
  
Without further comment, he grabbed for the packages on the table, and M. Claude dutifully followed him back to his sleeping room.  
  
When he came down the Garrison steps all activity in the yard slowly ceased.   
  
Milady knew the last thing Athos ever wished in life was to make an entrance. But there was no hiding his light in such a moment. M. Claude had indeed been a quick-work tailor. The doublet alone had cost more than most men’s weekly wage. The shirt underneath it was soft and milky as the hands of any lady-in-waiting to the Queen. There was no dirty, heavy armour to it. The lace was fresh and perfect as all new-made lace is.  
  
He looked like a prince among paupers, and the bearing that he wore every day–-that confident self-possession–-fit perfectly with these vestments.  
  
"You are finished quickly,” she said as he approached her. Her tone was light, and pleased.  
  
“There was little for your Monsieur to do,” he offered her after a pause.  
  
Her eyebrow cocked.  
  
“You have taken my size before,” he said. “I see you have not forgotten it.”  
  
She cast her eyes down and away as she said it, “you are thinner about the shoulders and back,” she said, knowing without seeing him shirtless that the life-of-ease roundness that had once been there had been shifted and turned since into muscle from his chosen occupation.  
  
He let things pause even longer this time, his eyes looking out somewhere, over her head, pretending, at least, not to have heard her intimate comment.   
  
“Let us do this thing,” he said, and no one could have assumed he meant anything other than attacking the challenge ahead and parting from her and her unforgotten memories of their shared past as swiftly as possible.

**Author's Note:**

> This has, like, a single sentence reference to Milady's past as I imagined it that is also the basis of her in my Coming Alive fic.


End file.
